It was god-forsaken land. The howling December
wind raced down from the mountains and swept the desert sand before it like an
icy broom, scraping the raw rocks clean and opening fresh wounds in the barren
ground. Nothing much grew here except stubborn sagebrush, a few shriveled pinion
trees, and a legend of lost Indian gold, which was what had brought Travis here
in the first place.

"Senor Travis, I think we have searched this
place many times already since you first came here."

Travis gritted his teeth. "I can't quit now,
Alberto. I simply have to find that gold. There could be enough to bring your
people out of poverty. You’ve been oppressed for centuries and you deserve to
have it."

Alberto pulled his poncho tighter and looked at
the sky. Clouds of sand swirled above their heads and partially obscured the
sinking sun. It was late in the year, almost time for the Holy Festival of the
Savior's Birth. This should be a time of rest, of great joy. Instead, he was
following around this Anglo, earning a few shiny coins to take into the
city when the new year came.

"Have some water, Senior. You look thirsty."
Alberto offered his canteen and Travis took a tentative swallow. The water was
warm and slightly bitter, but he didn't want to insult Alberto so he took a long
drink.

"I've run the simulation a hundred times,"
muttered Travis. "These are the original notes from the first Spanish expedition
to stumble on this place. And when I overlay their surveys with the
topographical maps of the area, the result is always the same. The Aztec temple
was on this plateau, with that mountain in the background to the north. The
temple was here - I can feel it in my bones." Travis studied the laptop in his
hands and shook his head.

"Maybe the computer is wrong, Senor. I have told
you many times that the Aztec relics have all been found closer to the canyon."

"I know that," answered Travis softly. "Everyone
knows that. But the Spanish wrote of a temple on this plateau. That's where the
gold would have been. All the evidence points to right here." He scraped the
heel of his boot into the hardscrabble ground.

"But still, your computer must be wrong. My
family has lived here for many generations. I believe we would have known if
there was gold here."

"I'm sure that is true. And the whites would
have stolen it from you if you had found it. But you didn't find it because you
didn't know the right place to dig. That's why I came here - to find it for
you.” Travis muttered to himself and punched a few more buttons on his laptop.

"Your computer must be a very fine machine for
you to put so much faith in it," remarked Alberto, as he glanced out across the
forlorn plateau. Suddenly he frowned and stuck a ruddy hand up into the air. His
eyes grew wide. "We must go back to the village now."

"Why? We've still got a least an hour left of
daylight."

"Senor, the wind is changing. We must go now."

Travis looked up. Alberto was right. The wind
clearly had shifted. It felt much warmer now, like a blast of air from a
furnace. Small, whirling tornadoes formed around his feet where cold and hot air
met. Hot air burrowed beneath his leather jacket and took a few bone-dry nibbles
on the skin of his arms. It was an eerie feeling after being chilled all day.

"Senor, you must come to the village now. You do
not want to be out here after dark." Alberto tugged on Travis' sleeve.

"Why?"

"Please, Senor. It is not safe now. You must come
with me to the Mission."

"The Mission? Why the Mission?"

"Because it is where we go. You will be safe
there."

Travis allowed Alberto to guide him down off the
plateau. He glanced back over his shoulder, trying to resist, but the sudden,
drastic change in temperature, the eerie wind, and the failing light had left
him disoriented.

Below the two men, at the base of the plateau,
stood a row of ramshackle dwellings, the stucco of their walls melting into the
rocky ground in the amber light of sunset. At the edge of the little settlement
stood the Mission - a whitewashed, stucco church, standing lonely guard on a
small hill in the distance. Its walls were pocked and blasted by sand, and they
had been recently patched. A low wall of flat rocks circled the church, except
for a small gap in the front, which was closed off with a white, picket fence
gate. The steeple of the church was squat and rounded in the Spanish style and
the wooden cross on top was silhouetted against the sinking sun. A gnarled
cottonwood tree, stripped of its leaves, scraped its branches against the row of
plain windows, as if trying to get inside the church and out of the hot wind.

A small parade of villagers moved towards the
church from their houses - babies, children, adults, and old people. They
strolled along casually, as if going to a picnic.

"What's going on?" asked Travis from his vantage
point on the hill.

"It is the Hueso Seco, Senor - Wind
Like Dry Bones. The pits of hell have opened, and the hot air carries with
it demons, hungry for a sacrifice – a human sacrifice to carry across the arroyo
and down into the pits. But do not be frightened. Spanish priests built the
Mission long ago to protect us. It is where we go." Alberto said this as if he
were talking to a child, and his brown face seemed to light up from the inside
like a jack-o-lantern.

"What a rich tradition," said Travis. "I'm
surprised I didn't come across that one before."

"It is a fact of life, Senior."

Travis stared into Alberto's brown eyes and saw
rock-solid faith there. This was very interesting, yet another example of how
European imperialism had twisted native beliefs into something bizarre. He'd
have to do a paper about this.

"You go ahead," he said. "I've got some research
to do. I think I'll go back to my tent. I'll pick you up in the morning."

"No!"

Travis had never heard Alberto shout before. He
stopped in his tracks.

"You must come with me to the Mission, Senor
Travis."

A fierce gust of wind howled around the two men.
Travis sheltered his laptop under his coat, trying to protect it from the
swirling sand. He supposed it would be better if he could witness this thing
firsthand. "Okay," he said. "I'll go with you. I wouldn't be surprised if this
wind blew my tent down anyhow." He said the words, but they sounded far away, as
if they were coming from someone else's mouth. The wind really was getting to
him.

They picked their way carefully down the rocky
slope until they reached the rutted street of the little town. As they passed by
the houses, Travis had to quicken his pace to keep up with Alberto. They
followed the last of the villagers into the old Mission. The wind blew the
wooden double-doors shut behind them with loud echo.

As soon as the doors slammed shut it was eerily
quiet, as if someone had suddenly muted the shrieking wind. The Mission smelled
of candles, cedar, and unwashed bodies. Crude statues perched on each windowsill
- squat, plaster renderings of the Virgin Mary and Child, about two feet high.
Candles flickered in front of each statue, turning the molded faces into shadowy
chameleons - smiling Virgins one moment, glaring panthers the next.

"You will be safe now, Senor Travis," said
Alberto, who then strolled forward to join his wife Rosa and three small
children, who had gathered with the others in the central part of the room. The
villagers congregated around the pews, talking and laughing. Their mood was
festive, but Travis remained just inside the closed doors, clutching his laptop.
He finally took a seat in one of the back pews. He supposed he was a little
uncomfortable. When you put a bunch of villagers together like this in a small
room, the smell could wrinkle your nose. Besides that, their rapid-fire Spanish
was too fast for Travis to follow. He shook his head. He was thinking like an
American white male again.

Travis popped the lid on his laptop and the
computer screen flashed on with a familiar glow. He loaded up some reference
files and began searching for information about Hueso Seco.

The light dimmed as Travis pored over his laptop.
Soon it was fully dark outside, and the only light inside came from flickering
candlelight and the steady, bluish light from Travis' computer. The villagers
snacked on bread and wine as the wind whistled through the windowpanes.

Something scratched the outside of the window
nearest to Travis. He looked up, startled, until he remembered the gnarled
cottonwood tree he had seen in the churchyard. The sound had only been branches
against the window.

The scratching came again, this time a little bit
louder. Travis cocked his head. It hadn't sounded like a tree branch; it was a
clear, scraping sound, like a glass cutter might make. Travis set his laptop
aside and went to the window. He tried to see out into the dark night but the
statue and candle were in the way. He moved the candle and grabbed the top of
the statue, intending to set it aside. It was heavy.

"Senor Travis, you must move away from the
window."

Travis nearly jumped out of his skin. "You scared
the hell out of me," he said to Alberto, who had approached him unnoticed.

Alberto gently grabbed Travis' hand and pulled it
back from the statue. The villagers had stopped talking and watched the two men
closely.

"I am sorry, Senor. Please sit back down and you
will be safe."

"But I heard something at the window."

"You will hear many more things before the night
is through. The best thing that you can do is to stay away from the window."

All week Travis had been giving Alberto orders,
but now Alberto was giving orders to him. Travis had to admit to himself that he
didn't like it much. But then he remembered the first law of field work, the one
about respecting other cultures.

"Okay," he said. "No problem. It's just that you
should have someone check on those coyotes out there. They might break a window
or something." He smiled. Alberto didn't smile back.

Travis stood still for a long, uncomfortable
moment. He looked over at his laptop, lying in the pew and blinking cheerfully,
a life raft. "Well," he muttered finally. "I guess I'll get some more work
done."

Travis sat back down in the pew, put the computer
on his lap, and instinctively slid a little farther away from the window.
Alberto replaced the candle and went back to the other villagers, who resumed
talking and laughing as if nothing had happened.

Suddenly a terrible, high-pitched wail came from
just outside the window. It was unlike anything Travis had ever heard, not quite
animal, not quite human - a piercing sound that reached inside of Travis' neck
and poured ice-water down his spinal column. Travis clutched his laptop tightly
and looked towards the window, his mouth open. He saw something outside -
something like branches but more substantial, like claws - twisted claws coming
out of the dark night to scrape against the glass.

The wailing spread to another window, and then
another. Soon the sound swirled all around the church - high, screeching,
terrible. Travis covered his ears with his fists and glanced frantically around
the room. The sound was like a fire alarm, the kind of piercing siren that made
you desperate to run outside to safety. Travis looked toward the villagers. He
could no longer hear them talking but he could see their mouths moving calmly,
still carrying on conversations and laughing as if nothing was wrong. He put his
laptop aside and raced over to Alberto.

"Don't you hear that?" he shouted over the din.
"What is that?"

"I already told you what it is, Senor. Please sit
down and you will be safe. We will all be safe."

Travis knew all about respecting other cultures'
beliefs, but this was something else again. How could these people just sit
there like that? He wanted to throttle Alberto, to grab him by the neck, to
shake him. Couldn't he see the danger they were in?

A noise came from overhead. Something was
crawling around on the roof, something ponderous and heavy. Travis looked up and
saw tiny cracks begin to form in the plaster ceiling. They ran like slow rivers,
causing bits of plaster to float down to the floor. Whatever was on the roof
began to pound on it with what sounded like a huge fist. Travis felt a
claustrophobic panic grab his gut. The ceiling seemed to descend, to sag inward
towards his upturned face.

Travis grabbed Alberto's sleeve. "We have to do
something!" he shouted.

"But we are doing something, Senor. We are taking
shelter in the Holy Mission. It will protect us."

"This flimsy little place? You ignorant
little..." Travis could feel himself losing control, but it was as if he was
watching from a distance. What could be making noises like that? Nothing he
could imagine. Actually, by now he was imagining all kinds of things. Whatever
was out there would soon crack open the Mission like a dog scratching open a can
of beans. And when that happened...

The shrieking eased up for a moment. Travis
cocked his head. The wind continued outside, blowing through the eaves and
sending its hot, foul breath through every crack in the stucco. It hissed
through the gaps in the putty around the windows, sounding like a harsh whisper.

Travis spun around in tight circles, covering his
ears and trying to block out the noise. The statues in the windowsills wobbled
in place. The pounding on the roof intensified. The double doors at the front of
the church began to rattle as if something was shaking them from the outside. It
seemed as if the whole building would collapse any second. Sound came from
everywhere - everywhere except...

Travis faced the back door. It was a simple,
single wooden door. There was no rattling going on there - no sounds came from
that part of the churchyard at all. The back door looked like a beacon, a sign
that said 'Escape,' a door that would get him away from this death trap.
He could run away unseen in the darkness. He could climb the hill and make it
back to his tent and his rifle. He could fire the gun if he had to, to keep
whatever was out there at bay for a moment - just long enough for him to get
into his jeep and get the hell out of there - to drive as fast as he could to
the highway.

Travis ran back to the pew and retrieved his
precious laptop from where it waited, cursor blinking. He closed the lid, tucked
the device under his arm, and turned. Alberto blocked his way.

"Do not go outside, Senor," he pleaded.

"Get out of my way, you idiot." shouted Travis.
"If you want to die here that's fine. But I'm leaving."

"But they will take you if you go outside, Senor.
They will drag you away to torture you forever." Alberto tried to grab onto his
arm, but Travis kicked out and sent him sprawling.

Other villagers tried to block him as well, but
Travis ran the gauntlet, kicking and screaming until he made it to the back
door. He turned the knob and stood for a moment, gazing into the inky blackness.
He charged into the night and the howling wind blew the door shut behind him
like a closing mouth.

Once outside, Travis circled around the back of
the church, running like a hunchback. The wind blew sand into his face.
Something brushed the back of his neck as he raced past the cottonwood tree. He
tripped over a tree root and sprawled on his face in the gravelly dirt. The
laptop rattled across the ground and into the darkness.

Travis jumped to his feet again. He had lost
track of which way the hill was. He spun around in complete darkness. He
couldn't see the church anymore, even though he knew he should be right beside
it. Something sharp pricked his neck. Travis reached up and felt warm blood
trickling down onto his shoulder. He screamed. Lightning flashed and Travis saw
the hill in front of him, silhouetted against the churning sky. At the top was
his tent, and, better yet, his jeep. Something bit into his neck again and he
jerked forward, nearly falling on his face, but he regained his balance and
began to run to the hill, faster than he had ever run in his life.

His feet slipped on the loose rocks, but he began
to climb, scraping his knuckles and trashing his knees. He was whimpering now,
but still he kept moving. Finally he reached the jeep and flung open the door.
He reached into the pocket of his khakis for his keys. They weren't there. Of
course, they weren't there. The damned keys. Another shriek from the hill behind
him nearly split his head in two. He wrestled the glove compartment open and
took out his pistol and fired through the open window over and over until the
chamber clicked.

Travis looked down at the steering column. The
keys were there. Improbably, they hung from the ignition, reflecting the
lightning flashes. He never left his keys in the jeep, but there they were. He
almost laughed.

He started the motor - it caught on the first
try. He jammed it into gear, just as something reached through the window and
grabbed him by the shoulder. Claws dug into his neck and his body jerked like a
rag doll. He was pulled out of the jeep and dragged across the sand, far, far
away into the darkness.

****

No one spoke inside the Mission. Everyone had
heard the shots from outside. Alberto slowly picked himself up and sat in a pew.
He muttered, "He was not as bad as some of the others. He said he wanted to
share the gold with us, maybe even give it all to the village."

"He was still a pain in the ass," someone said.
Someone else laughed.

The villagers took pieces of bread and nibbled on
them. Alberto's wife, Rosa, made the sign of the cross and said, "My prayer is
that he got away."

"They never get away," answered Alberto.

Plaster from the ceiling drifted down like snow
as the shrieking wind outside stopped abruptly and the night became quiet.

*****

"What should we do with this?" asked Rosa. The
morning sun shone brightly and a brisk December breeze blew down from the
mountains. Rosa held the laptop computer out to her husband, the computer she
had found lying in the dust by the cottonwood tree. It was still in one piece.

"I don't know," answered Alberto. "Maybe we can
sell it in town."

"There are those who say that a machine like this
can work miracles," said Rosa. "Maybe we should keep it, and learn how to use
it."

Alberto chuckled. "I believe we have miracles
enough already."

He carried the laptop into the Mission and set it
down before the altar. He began to clean up the mess from the night before. He
swept up the plaster and the bread crumbs and took each statue down out of the
window. The statues were very heavy, and Alberto had to strain to lift them.
When he lifted the last one, a piece of plaster fell off the back of it,
revealing shiny, yellow metal underneath. Alberto made a mental note to fix that
before any more Anglos showed up. It wouldn't do to have them find the
sacred gold.